It’s actually a Christmas gift for McAdenville and the hundreds of thousands who come to bask in the glow of Christmas Town USA every year.

Pharr worked with Charlotte’s CC Communications to create a GPS-guided mobile app that offers visitors — and locals — a look at the town’s history as they roll or stroll through McAdenville’s dazzling display.

Open the mobile site and you’ll find a map dotted with cheerful red Christmas trees, each a link to an historic McAdenville factoid.

One that stirs Mel Collins, Pharr’s vice president of human resources, enlightens users about the town’s connection with Thomas Edison.

The famous inventor came to McAdenville in 1883 to help install the generator that made McAden Mills the first electrically lighted textile mill in the world.

Visitors came to the mill town then to see the miraculous bulb, the “light in a bottle,” explains the app.

“And this many years later 600,000 people a year still come to see our Christmas lights,” says Collins. “There really is a wonderful synchronicity.”

There are links, too, between the company that designed the app and the town it features.

CEO Kip Cozart’s father was an engineer at Pharr Yarns. Cozart grew up amid the twinkling holiday attraction and brought his own children back for the annual tradition.

Some five generations of the family, he says, “have been affiliated with that luxury.”

By next year Cozart expects the ChristmasTownTour.com app to be available in the iTunes and Android mobile stores. There’s been talk of adding real-time traffic and wait-time reports.

Collins would like that. It might help with the frustration from people who wait in long lines only to have the lights turn out before they can get downtown.

There’s no Grinch stealing the Christmas lights at curfew, Collins promises. There are more than 30 electronic timers to keep the strict schedule.

He spends a lot of time this season thinking and talking about the town’s annual Christmas exhibition.

When the local tourism office gets calls about where to park buses or the hours for the local Village Restaurant, those callers are referred to none other than the Pharr VP.

His email address is the contact on the Christmas Town U.S.A. Facebook page.

Collins gets excited about the increasing number of walkers through the town.

And he gets worried about the folks who park on the opposite side of U.S. 74 and try to cross the busy highway on foot — something he asks guests to avoid doing at all costs.

But he can talk for longer about the custom of the lights and the tradition of the town.

The yule log celebration dates back to the late 1940s, he says, that nostalgic era of the Red Rider BB gun.

With help from CaroMont and Husqvarna, Pharr Yarns gave away 2,000 bags of kettle corn and 3,000 cups of hot chocolate during this year’s parade.

Another thing Collins likes to tell people: The lights are free to all.

This year, he can say the same thing about the self-guided mobile tour.

“It really fills you with pride to say this is a gift from Pharr Yarns — and a gift from the residents of McAdenville — to the children,” he says.

“You come to McAdenville and this is that pure, non-commercial Christmas of your childhood. And it’s still here.”